Phones, bikes...’high-voltage copper wire’? A sample of what gets stolen at USC

We’ve all been there. You’re in a hurry to cash in on that extra credit or the last-minute drink special and you forget to lock up your bike. Maybe you forget your backpack at the library. Maybe you thought you locked your car doors but didn’t.

Sometimes you just get unlucky.

The State assembled a list of most commonly stolen items on the University of South Carolina’s campus and found students are more likely to lose bicycles to street thieves and money, phones or purses from unlocked cars. The list is based on a sample of USC police records from Nov. 9 to Nov. 28.

Campus thefts tended to be crimes of opportunity, such as the thief taking unlocked bicycles from the street and riding off with them, or a string of car thefts where the perpetrator was breaking into Jeep Wranglers by unzipping the canvas cover and stealing money or purses.

None of the thefts involved robbery or violence during the two-week sample The State examined.

But not all of the crimes fit the typical mold. An unknown suspect stole “several feet of high-voltage copper wire” from an underground tunnel beneath the old law school at 1112 Greene St. USC officials told police the suspect likely needed special tools to cut through the high-voltage wire.

Type of item stolen

Phone: 1

Money: 3

Laptop: 1

Backpack/purse: 3

Bicycle: 7

Copper wire: 1

Moped: 1

Portable heater: 1

Nothing: 2

Method

Burglary, theft from building: 4

Theft from vehicle: 7

Stolen off the street (bikes and mopeds): 7 (an eighth was stolen by someone who cut a lock)